Vision for the Future
by Neo-Lifethane
Summary: Version 2.0 and sequel to Lacking Sight and War of the Eyes. Two years later, the Akatsuki weapon used at the Grave is in the hands of the Lightning Country. DISCONTINUED
1. Prologue: War's End

**Vision for the Future**

_Lifethane_

**Prologue: War's End  
**

The bridge of the enormous flying warship was engulfed in a cacophony. Orders were being barked by numerous crew chiefs and met with panicked acknowledgment from the subordinates. Explosions in the sky outside rocked the vessel with shockwaves such that everyone aboard had to stop what they were doing and hang on to the bulkheads or whatever was available for dear life every other moment. Through one of the viewing panels that had been broken open, the screams and roars and clanging metal of the combat below could be heard in between the explosions.

The whole crew knew that even though they were airborne, they were no safer than their counterparts on the ground. Though they had not had time for a proper briefing before lift-off, they had been informed that the insurgents were equipped with weapons that had been capable of destroying the high tower-mounted defense installations of the Cloud Village from the base of the defensive wall—a difference in height of approximately one-hundred and sixty meters, and a length of trajectory at least two-hundred. Given the ship's maximum test height of one-hundred and forty-five meters and maximum speed of seventy kilometers-per-hour, it was extremely likely that they could be shot down by these weapons, assuming the rebels still had them. In an allied village, they would not be able to fire back, either. Unless some miracle manifested itself and saved them, their chances of survival were slim.

Nevertheless, the ship's captain made a valiant attempt to keep order. He strode back and forth along the catwalk between the helm station and the command console, stopping above each station to observe, encourage and, when needed, render assistance to his crew chiefs and their charges. Though he could see the open panic in the eyes of some of his subordinates, he was able to keep them at their panels and doing their jobs. Thus, the ship remained in the air and functional even as they sailed through a storm of fireworks that the insurgents had let fly.

"Steady as you go!" he yelled to his helmsman. "No course changes except to avoid a direct hit! Damage Control can handle the scrapes."

"Aye, sir!"

He moved to the next station, where the young weather crew officer had noted heavy clouds in the west was hurriedly trying to squeeze a report out of his meteorology team for the area. The team was frantically reading their instruments and performing the necessary calculations, but they were unable to produce reliable results due to several of the ship's ventral sensor arrays being heat-damaged. The junior officer was clearly agitated and looked ready to tear his panel operators' heads off.

"Weather Officer of the Watch!" the captain called, to which the officer straightened and snapped to face him.

"Yes, sir?!"

"Go above and have someone who's got their head on right relieve you. Come back when you've had time to compose yourself."

The terrified officer hastily complied, very glad to be wash his hands of this mess. Without even a second glance at his captain, he vanished up the ladder into the upper levels to find his relief. The captain put the senior operator in charge of the weather station, and told her to report adverse conditions when the instruments were working properly.

Luckily, the fireworks stopped a few moments later, and the crew's renewed courage quickly became evident. The helmsman's hands grew steadier, and thus the ship shook less, further improving morale at the other stations in a chain reaction.

The captain returned to his command console, observing the ground battle through the tactical viewing window mounted in the deck beneath him. He could see the enemy's launchers being overrun by the Cloud shinobis' superior numbers, which explained why the fireworks had stopped abruptly. The battle was nowhere near over, however; he could also see that the insurgents had broken through the lines to the inner cloister of the village, where the armory and main supply depot, as well as the Raikage Tower, formed the points of a triangle. If the Tower and its many defensive weapons were taken, the village would be lost.

As he watched a cloaked rebel suddenly produce and fling a barbed vine like a whip at a squad of Cloud nin, wiping out two of them and grazing the third, the captain realized that though the Cloud had the advantages of numbers and home ground, the class of ninja that the enemy possessed was substantially higher. The village might very well fall in this battle, though it would take a long time. If and when it did, the Lightning Country would be forced to surrender and this whole war would be for nothing.

_But then, _he thought, _was there even a reason we entered the war in the first place?_

They had told him that the country's leaders had done it because the Raikage, the leader of the Cloud nin, had insisted, promising them that he could retake the land and the resources that had been lost in the last Great War. In doing so, the revered master had said, they would usurp the Fire Country's throne as the dominant power on the continent, and all the traders and contractors would come to Lightning Country to seek their fortunes. A new era would begin.

But as the war dragged on, the citizenry—as well as the captain himself—had become increasingly convinced that the Raikage was insane. It wasn't until the weapon called Susa had become operational that they had their faith in him restored. However, even with that power, the village was being taken. How could the slaughter up until now be justified if the rewards that the Raikage had promised them were reaped, not by them, but by the enemy? The captain knew that it could not, and when the war ended, the victorious countries would make the Lightning Country suffer for it.

Still, there was little that he could do except to press on. Unwaveringly, he ordered his helmsman to keep them flying straight for the forest valley that was supposed to conceal the enemy ninja's forward base of operations. Once there, they would deploy Susa and, hopefully, knock out any possibility of enemy reinforcements.

Suddenly, a whooping siren-like noise made two pulses, indicating that a message was coming in over the sound-powered communicators. He picked up the handset and held it to his ear, pressing his lips against the mouthpiece.

"Bridge, captain speaking."

"Bridge, Maneuvering," the officer on the other end said, identifying himself. "We are observing wide fluctuations in power. We may be unable to maintain maximum speed if the levels do not stabilize."

"Manuevering, Bridge," the captain responded, "Maintain as high a power as you can. Propulsion, not weaponry, is the top priority now."

"Bridge, Maneuvering, aye, sir."

"Bridge, Fire Control!" another phone talker yelled. The captain, who had about to put his handset down again, immediately brought it back to his ear again.

"What is it, Fire Control?" he said.

"Sir, the weapon module compartment has been breached by saboteurs! One of the capsules has been smashed open!"

This was such shocking news that the captain let the handset fall from his grip. Terror gripped him more strongly than it had been gripping his grew not long ago—Susa, sabotaged! The weapon had only just had its final capsule filled, and now it had been emptied again. But worse than that was the thought that the contents of that capsule were more than likely running amok in the ship this very moment, which was a greater danger to them than all the fireworks in the world.

"Lock down all compartments!" he barked into the general announcing system. Immediately, heavy hatches began shutting rapidly all throughout the ship. Just as fast, the crew on the bridge turned their heads to stare at him in bewilderment. He knew that they were all wondering what he had heard over the phone, but their apparent fear made it obvious that they already were aware that it must be something bad.

"All crews, mind your stations," he added, noting their reaction. He exhaled as his order was executed.

"Sir," his Bridge Coordinator said, approaching the console cautiously. "If I may ask, what's going on?"

"Never you mind," the captain told him. "But stand by for new orders. Be ready for an emergency landing if I call for one."

The Coordinator promptly returned to his duties, allowing the captain to turn his attention to the crisis. He listened carefully to the noises of the ship around him. Oddly enough, he could only hear the normal sounds of the bridge, the faint mechanical whirrings and clangings of the engine room in the aft of the ship, and the continuing sound of battle on the ground below. Nothing else could be heard in the ship.

Nothing at all to indicate that one of the legendary Great Tailed Beasts was loose...

Then, quite suddenly, the young weather officer that he had sent above came back down frantically, screaming his head off in a panic. The bridge crew all stopped their work and turned around to watch with fearful faces as he scrambled down the ladder towards the deck, then fell the rest of the way when two shuriken embedded themselves in his shoulders, making him lose his grip. He hit the metal with a horrible thud and several sickening cracks that left no mystery as to whether his bones were all intact.

No roars came from beyond the hatch the officer had come through, resulting in an eerie silence that lasted an eternity for the captain and his crew. The captain knew that it was no Tailed Beast, for the monsters did not use shuriken. It could only be the saboteurs, whom he was quite sure by now were enemy ninja; who else could have gotten into the weapon compartment without being noticed? His hand went to the sword strapped to his hip, though he knew it would do him little good, and he waited for the inevitable exploding tag or smoke bomb to break the terrible silence and herald the end of his life.

Yet what came through the ceiling hatch five seconds later was no explosive or chemical; it was a person, who landed on the deck before anyone saw the assailant falling. This ninja wore a black bodysuit, black gloves, black boots, and had midnight black hair that fell loosely around his head and stopped at the base of his neck. Surprisingly, no weapon appeared in his hand, nor did one seem to be on his person anywhere. Just as curiously, no village identifier was marked anywhere on his clothing. The captain could not see his face, for the stranger had his back to him, but he noted that all of his crew seemed to be too terrified to move, so he assumed it must be a horrific face. He was not great in size, but the captain did not question it; size mattered very little to a ninja.

Then, much to his horror, the entire bridge crew just fell to the deck, all at once! No shuriken had been thrown, and no blows had been struck. The bastard had not even moved! He had to have been using some kind of mind trick—genjutsu, illusion, the captain remembered the Cloud shinobi called it—to make them all unconscious...

_Or dead,_ his mind whispered.

Seeing his crew fall, the captain was overcome with grief. But the stranger still had his back to him, and hadn't appeared to notice him. Perhaps the sword in his hand could avenge his crew. Perhaps not. But he was willing to take his chances; his life alone was not worth much, and if he succeeded then the Lightning Country had one less enemy. As quietly as he could, he crept around his console and towards the back of the (hopefully) unsuspecting adversary.

But an elbow was in his gut before he had even lifted the blade for a stroke. The ninja had known he was there, after all. Before he could recover himself, the ninja followed up the strike with a spinning kick and then, inexplicably, a gust of wind blew from the ninja's turned back and tossed him unceremoniously against his console. No magic words, no strange, mystic hand contortions that he had seen other ninja use... the ninja seemed to have generated the blast of air from his will alone. Sputtering blood, the captain collapsed to the deck, joining his crew. Agonized groans escaped his throat, despite the effort of his remaining pride to keep it down. The ship was lost, just as the village was most likely lost.

While he lay coughing on the deck of his ship, the ninja turned and climbed back up the ladder, returning a moment later with another stranger slung over his shoulders. The ninja set this burden down against a nearby instrument panel and walked towards the helm, where he busied himself by surveying the surrounding area through the viewing ports and spun the wheel, making course corrections. He did not say a word throughout the whole process, but then the captain supposed he shouldn't have expected any more. The Cloud nin were notoriously single-minded, so it made sense that other ninja would be similar.

Unable to speak himself due to being winded and hoarse from coughing and fear, the captain refrained from questioning the ninja, instead glancing over at the apparently unconscious stranger that the ninja had retrieved from the top of the ladder. It was a female clad in a tattered and dirty white robe, who had black hair pulled back in a ragged braid. There were many cuts on her pale, gaunt face, which he surmised must once have been beautiful. She appeared to have spent many days without food. If not for the slight rise and fall of her chest, he might even have believed her to be dead.

Then, she groaned in her sleep and started to twitch and spasm, and her breathing became very rapid—it appeared that in addition to being starved and injured, she was also very sick. This caught the attention of the black-clad ninja as well, who stopped adjusting the ship's course and rushed over to her. The ninja knelt and grasped the woman by the shoulders, holding her down, and examined her carefully.

"Haruka, don't die," the ninja said.

The voice, the captain was surprised to find out, was that of another female. He had thought for sure that she was a man, mainly due to the lack of breasts and the brutal force of the blow she had given him earlier. But, he reasoned, she probably was flat-chested because she was very young; her voice had the high pitch of girlhood, and youthfulness would explain her very small size.

_This young, and already a powerful shinobi,_ he thought to himself. _It is small wonder that the Fire Country has come this far in the war, if the Leaf have ninjas so strong at this age..._

The young ninja bent over the woman and held her down until she finally stopped shaking, then stood up and returned to her work. She finished changing the ship's course, then set about lowering its height. The captain watched her, trying to figure out what she was trying to accomplish. It seemed that she had turned it towards the mountain range that surrounded Cloud village on three sides, and she had set the altitude at just above one hundred meters. Did she have friends in that direction, waiting to board and take control of the entire vessel? Or was she simply planning to smash it into a mountainside? It was impossible to tell yet.

"What's wrong with... her?" he asked, finally finding his voice.

The young ninja stopped in surprise for a moment, then continued her work. She was now overriding Maneuvering's control over propulsion and setting the ship's speed lower.

"She will be well soon," she told him as she worked. "Her body is in shock, but it will soon become acclimated to the change."

"What change?" the captain asked. "She isn't ill? Was she one of those experiments of the Raikage's that rumors have been getting out about?"

The girl ceased adjusting the speed when it reached thirty kilometers-per-hour by the local meter, then moved on to the auxiliary weapons panel, where she overrode and shut down all of the ship's defensive batteries and disabled Susa's main cannon. The ship was now low, slow, and helpless. Maybe she was planning to have her allies board the ship, after all.

"No," she said. "She's been through much worse than that. But she is a shinobi like the rest of us; she will be pained for a while, but she will survive."

Then, she turned her head towards him, and he saw her face at last. She was indeed a child, perhaps ten years old, with pale skin, cheeks that hadn't yet lost their baby fat. Yet she had very cunning, intelligent eyes. The eyes of someone who was growing up much too fast, who had experienced pain and loss of her own.

Red eyes, with the strangest pupils the captain had ever seen. They were not round, but formed an odd star-burst pattern in the center of those crimson irises. The captain felt himself gripped in the will of this child's outlandish eyes.

"You are going to survive, too," the girl told him. "As are your crew members. But you should abandon this ship as soon as it gets clear of the village."

"Why?" the captain asked, intending to find out why she, his enemy, was sparing his life.

She took it to mean that he wanted to know why he must leave the ship, and said, "Because, if the mountains do not destroy the ship, Susa eventually will. The weapon's operator has become unstable. We tried to pacify him, but he is beyond saving and he nearly killed us. And even if he does not kill you, the other insurgents might, once they find you."

The captain's vision swirled and distorted around the red eyes, the only stable points in view. His consciousness was slipping, his will diminishing. He was powerless to stop it. This was the power that had incapacitated his crew.

"Who are... you?" he managed to gasp.

"You will wake up soon. Mind what I have told you, and you and your crew will live."

"Who...?"

A pause, then...

"I don't know yet. If I see you again, maybe I will tell you."

His vision left him, along with his mind, and he slumped against the command console, no longer in this world.

Her task completed, the ninja gathered her unconscious companion onto her back once again and, moving back behind the console, kicked out the tactical viewing window from beneath her feet. Wind rushed through her black hair as she fell away from the dreadful flying machine towards the ground below. She could see the battle continuing there. Her allies were just entering the base of the Raikage Tower. Now the long battle to ascend the tower's many levels and capture it would begin.

She saw a large machine being wheeled towards the base of the tower by Lightning Country soldiers, escorted by five Cloud ninjas. She recognized the type—an artillery machine that had been developed in the last year of the war that fired large volleys of kunai knives in rapid succession. Escaping such a weapon was unlikely except for the more skilled ninja. The Fire Country soldiers and the Lightning Country rebel militia making for the entrance of the tower would be decimated if she did not do something.

Her eyebrows narrowed in concentration as she carefully formed the hand seals needed for her technique. Then she released her chakra, and the ground beneath the Lightning soldiers erupted, knocking them into various surrounding buildings and pinching the machine in between two pillars of earth.

The surviving Cloud nin saw her and launched ninjutsu of their own, among them gouts of spiraling wind and a serpent made of crackling lightning. The girl gasped in fear, but then on instinct she opened wide her strange eyes, which grew suddenly bloodshot. The enemy ninja froze in fear as black flame consumed their ninjutsu, then turned and ran as it made for them. But the flames did not follow them; instead, it consumed the war machine that they had been escorting.

The girl ninja clamped a hand over her eyes and whimpered in pain; she had not even known that she could do such a thing, nor had she known any ninjutsu that burned the user's eyes.

This, however, did not stop her from falling. Fortunately, she had been prepared for that, and as she fell within an arm's length of the top of the nearest building, she flipped herself and her unconscious passenger over, and kicked off the stone surface, sending herself flying towards the Raikage Tower. Her current speed was insufficient, but that was no matter. She merely focused her will and repeated the same trick she had used to send the captain of the ship rocketing into his own control panel, and blasted two concentrated gusts of air behind and below her to launch herself higher and farther, all without taking her hands off her passenger. She landed on a balcony near the top of the tall tower, nearly falling off the edge as the woman on her back unbalanced her.

Once she had steadied herself and regained her footing, she noted the two stunned, young-looking soldiers she had dropped in on staring at her in amazement and terror. Yet within a moment they recovered themselves and brandished their weapons at her. She dispatched them quickly with two quick jabs to each man's stomach, avoiding using the power of her hypnotic eyes for fear that she would hurt herself again—the power was still very new to her, and she had no one to teach her the proper way to use it.

She exited the balcony and made her way into the tower, and a masked Cloud ninja rounded the corner and charged her, moving with an incredible speed. The girl knew she was not fast enough to fight this man with her passenger, and so she unleashed a quick gout of orange flame using her invisible, hand seal-less power to keep him at bay while she set her burden down.

The enemy was a man twice her size and much faster than she was. She barely managed to raise her guard in time to deflect the first punch, and the rapid kick that swept her legs out from underneath her was too fast to be stopped. She began to fall to the floor, but the enemy stopped her by slamming his open palm into her stomach, which hurled her up and embedded her into the ceiling.

Thinking he had won, the masked ninja took his time in forming the complex hand seals of what looked like a water-style ninjutsu meant to be the killing blow. This turned out to be a mistake; the girl was more resilient and resourceful than he had thought, for in the next moment he found his feet encased in ice that appeared out of nowhere and bound him where he was. The girl extricated herself from the ceiling and fell to the floor, and the enemy ninja's eyes widened as he saw a pattern of white light on the girl's skin fade away. Then she came at him, landing a flying kick in his face and sending him crashing to the floor.

She attempted to follow up her attack, but the first attack had dislodged him from the ice and he rolled out of the way, spinning agilely on the floor and again sweeping her legs out from under her. Now that it was her on the floor rather than him, he decided to be quicker about finishing her, lest she trick him again. Pulling a knife, he put his foot down on her and rolled her over, exposing her chest. No fancy ninjutsu this time. He intended to simply stab her heart and be done with it. Looking upon her with spite, he knelt down to plunge the blade into her small body...

And then promptly fell unconscious, his kneel turned into a fall, landing across the chest he had meant to stab. The girl winced and clamped a hand over her eyes again in pain. Then, with some effort, she pushed her defeated attacker off of herself and hobbled, feeling with agony the true extent of her injuries, back to her companion. She could no longer carry the woman, so she dragged her across the floor towards the nearest door, which she opened, then entered and locked behind them.

She felt around in the darkness of the room for some kind of light source. Eventually, she found what she thought might be a torch, and lit it with a basic fire ninjutsu. Thankfully, it was a torch and it illuminated the room adequately. As she looked about, she realized that this must be the Raikage's stateroom—a large bed, a desk, and many bookshelves lined the walls, and numerous ornamental tapestries and hangings decorated the entire room. Three large statues of the past Raikages stood in the center of the chamber, looming over her as though meant to cow and intimidate.

Yet instead, the girl felt relieved. She slid home the bolt-locks on the door and moved several bookshelves against it, then moved her companion onto the bed. The window was of no concern, as a metal grate had been slid and locked shut behind it, probably at the start of the battle some hours earlier. The room was secured, and nobody had witnessed them enter it. They would be safe here, at least for a few hours, and then the rebels and their allies would rescue them.

Her companion suddenly began to shudder again. Immediately, she grasped her shoulders and held her down.

"Haruka, it's okay," she said gently. "You're going to be okay. You have to be okay..."

The shuddering stopped, and the girl allowed her head to fall onto her companion's chest. Finally away from danger and from prying eyes, she allowed her battle-hardened discipline to drop. Sniffing quietly, she let herself weep into the threadbare cloth of her companion's robe, holding onto the woman as tightly as her tired, fractured arms would allow. There she stayed a long time, letting out all her sorrows even as the carnage and the death continued around them.

Fighting could wait, for now. Her young mind couldn't take any more just yet. It had already taken too much.

"Why did this happen, Haruka?" she said hoarsely, her throat constricted from crying. "I did what I was supposed to. I kept the secrets that I was trusted with, and I found Naruto and went with him just like I was told to, but I didn't get what they promised me. I'm still alone..."

Haruka groaned slightly, but she did not shudder or spasm. The girl lifted her head and gave a forced smile.

"Sorry," she said. "I meant, alone except for you. But I barely know you, even though Keisuke talked about you a lot..."

She frowned, as though remembering a painful truth. Then she laid her head down and wept again.

"And you're hurt," she said when she regained her voice. "We're both hurt... and I have all these powers that I know little or nothing about, powers I shouldn't have. Keisuke tried to teach me, though. He was the closest thing to a parent that I've ever had, even if it was only for a little while. But now..."

This time, she fought back the tears. She steeled herself, a new resolve taking shape within her. Looking upon Haruka with purpose, she grasped the woman's hand firmly.

"I'll take care of you for him, Haruka. I promised him that I would. But there are two things I have to do first."

She stood up and made her way over to the Raikage's desk, sitting down in the high-backed chair and rummaging through the drawers until she found paper and an ink pen. Then she cleared away the clutter of books, charts, and food that remained on the desktop, sweeping all of it into the waste bin that sat by her feet. Finally, she set the stack of paper to one side of the desk, put a small metal paperweight from the drawer on top of it, and lit a candle on the other side. She glanced at Haruka one more time.

"I probably won't be here when you wake up," she said. "But I'll be back soon. Maybe Naruto and Hinata will, too. When all of this is over, I'll make sure it never happens again. I promise."

She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, letting her stress leave her, and allowing the memories of the past weeks to come flowing back into her mind. Weeks of trial and triumph, weeks of training and accomplishment, weeks of laughter and fun, weeks of war, bravery, and comradely unity. The most wonderful, terrible weeks of her life, and the only ones she had any memory of. It all came back to her in such detail that she could practically see herself living it all over again.

Then she reopened her eyes. Her vision was slightly dimmer and blurrier than usual—probably from all her crying, she reasoned—but it was not very troublesome. She had had excellent eyesight to begin with, and could still see quite well. At peace with herself for the moment, she settled into the chair and began to write...

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO


	2. Chapter One: The Hurricane

**Naruto: The Eyes of Redemption**

_written by "Lifethane"_

**Episode III: Vision for the Future**

_It is a time for prayer in the land of shinobi. Although the War of the Eyes has been over for two years, conflict continues to rage in the Country of Lightning. With it's reigning leader captured, the country has been forced to turn to the leader of the Cloud Shinobi, Raikage. Though the people fear that he has gone mad, the powerful master ninja has declared that the advantages held by the enemy villages of Leaf and Sand will be made meaningless with the launch of their new and catastrophic superweapon, which he has dubbed Susa. _

_Believing this new weapon to actually be the same module deployed in the Grave two years prior, the Leaf's top leaders have agreed that the only course of action is to find the weapon and destroy it. If their beliefs are correct, this weapon is capable of wiping out entire villages in a matter of moments. It also confirms the connection between the Cloud village and the mysterious organization Akatsuki that the Southern Eye forces have suspected for months. This theory, if true, is too devastating to be unexplored._

_Spies have reported seeing a suspiciously high level of activity in a mountain-side facility some distance south of The Village Hidden in Clouds. Despite suspicions that the Cloud are deliberately leaving their movements unmasked to draw out the last of the Jinchuuriki—the humans containing the mighty Tailed Demons within their bodies—to further fuel their weapon, the Leaf's Hokage has dispatched their greatest heroes into this likely trap..._

**Chapter I: The Hurricane**

**Operation: Nut Cracker**

_**Diamond Peak Fortress, Lightning Country**_

_**0800 hrs **_

Dawn greeted Cyclone Battalion with a brilliant winter sun that set the mildly clouded sky aflame with color and turned the frost upon the grass to moist dew. All twenty-five hundred of the Fire Country's foot soldiers crunched over the hard, brittle soil with cheery determination not common to soldiers on the brink of battle; many raised their weapons in salute to the glorious daybreak, and a number of younger men cheered loudly, shouting premature words of victory. Daytime wildlife in the forest alongside the road they travelled woke from its slumber to find its nocturnal counterparts flitting away in irritation or instinctual fear, and soon followed suit as the many marching footsteps and boisterous hoots drew closer to them in the echoing mountain pass. The battalion, reputed to be the rowdiest, noisiest bunch of warfighters in the whole of the continent, was outdoing itself this day.

"Well, how could we not?" the veterans would later say with smiles. "Nobody could keep a straight face, much less a grim attitude, with such a major victory only hours away—and especially not with _him_ at the reins."

Many such comments were made of the inspiring presence of Cyclone Battalion's commander in those years, and many were made for years to come after. He strode confidently at the front of the lead formation in every march, struck the first blow in every charge, yelled the loudest when the banner was flown. Wherever he was, he seemed to project an aura of such high morale that, it was told, a soldier nearby took a spear through the belly, single-handedly defeated the adversary who had thrown it and three of his companions, and proceeded to make a full recovery in the medical tent just scant weeks later. Under his banner, ordinary soldiers with less than a year of military experience were said to find a whole new side of themselves and become as adept at combat as trained shinobi. And wherever this band of daring, courageous young men and women went, victories for the Southern Eye numbered in the dozens. With their commander at the forefront of every operation, the long conflicts with the stubborn remnants of the Northern Eye and the unreadable rogue Lightning Country were near their final end, and the soldiers' confidence had never been more palpable.

Uzumaki Naruto was having no less of an effect on his troops this morning. He had been making his rounds throughout each rank of the leader of the ten formations at intervals, speaking words of encouragement to each warrior in turn, as was his custom on the day of a battle. He found that in doing this, he was able to learn a great deal about the true, hidden capabilities and weaknesses of his men on an individual basis. Even if he was notoriously forgetful of many of these facts in a social setting and often could not even remember a man's name, the information had a knack for coming back to him in times of critical need. The practice also dramatically improved morale and caused his soldiers to trust him implicitly—a quality he valued in everyone he worked with. Doing this over many battles, he had become good friends with a number of these men.

When each man in the formation had exchanged words with him, Naruto returned to the front of the pack. As he rounded the corner, he noted the slender, dark-haired young woman smiling at him from behind gleaming white eyes and altered his stride abruptly, exaggerating his movements and turning to face the horizon with deliberate militaristic flourish. The gesture caused the woman to giggle in amusement and the bulk of his troops to burst into chortling applause for the commander who couldn't act like a commander to save his own skin. He turned on his heel jerkily and marched backwards facing the laughing crowd, feigning anger.

"What are you laughing at, you miserable layabouts?!" he yelled in a mockery of a Fire Country drill sergeant.

This, of course, only made the men laugh harder—just as he intended. Even when the laughter died down, their smiling faces shone in the light of the rising sun, much to his satisfaction. Nothing, he was sure, could possibly dampen their spirits now. They were ready to cut the pants off of their enemies and send their naked behinds crying home to their mothers.

He turned to the young woman walking beside him, saying, "I think they're ready now. What so you say, Hinata?"

"They look like it," she answered, peering over her shoulder. A young female soldier waved to her from the third rank in recognition, and promptly had her hand pulled back to her side by her grizzled old platoon leader. Hinata laughed quietly to herself and waved back at her before turning to Naruto again. "You really do have an effect on people, Naruto. Every day they find some new excuse to praise you."

"Oh, really?" Naruto smiled at her with the same boyish, fox-like grin he'd been grinning since he had teeth. "What did they say this time? I'll bet it has something to do with the tree-club stunt back at the Border Sentry station."

"Actually," Hinata replied, "They have been continuing their made-up rumors again."

"Oh, no," Naruto exclaimed, his smile replaced by an insulted pout momentarily. "Not another one of those lame Uzumaki Naruto jokes. Jirou's spread them across half the world by now, I don't need them out here in the wilderness..."

"Uzumaki Naruto doesn't eat. Food understands that the only safe place from his fists is inside his own body," a nearby soldier volunteered helpfully. Naruto immediately slapped his forehead in dismay.

"It is illegal to clone a human because it would make it possible for an Uzumaki Naruto punch to meet with another Uzumaki Naruto punch. Sages theorize that this contact would end the universe."

"Oh, come on!" Naruto rebuked frustratedly. "You've seen me punch myself before, Kenta!"

"But sir," the young veteran insisted, "Ninja clones aren't the same as clones born like normal people. Besides, you've never had two of yourself punch each other in the fist, have you?"

"Yes, I have," Naruto huffed, crossing his arms. "The universe didn't end."

"No, but that particular crater won't be going anywhere for a few years, commander."

The whole company was laughing good-naturedly throughout the whole exchange. It was the one kind of joke that Uzumaki Naruto never seemed to find funny, but it was the one kind of joke that was too funny for the troops to stop telling. Hinata thought it ironic that Naruto, who once would have loved the idea of such blatantly over-exaggerated boasting brilliant, would now be unable to stomach it. It worried her sometimes.

"Naruto," she asked, once he had calmed down, "Why do you get so upset when they start telling those jokes? It isn't like you to not laugh at a joke."

"That kind of joke is praise that I don't need," Naruto said. His voice was not strained or angry, but it was devoid of his usual enthusiasm; he was stating things simply, matter-of-factly, all business—the way he would talk in a strategy meeting. "It's a great running gag for the guys and all, and it helps everyone's attitude, but it makes me feel like I'm becoming this symbol..."

"You _are_ a symbol," Hinata said, putting her hand on his arm gently and beaming at him. "You are the ray of hope that the weak and powerless victims look to in this war. You give people hope of peace and justice when, all their lives, they have only known fear and oppression."

"They cling to me like I'm some divine gift, sent to deliver them to the promised land," Naruto said. He took her hand in his, squeezing it lightly as his way of acknowledging and thanking her for her support.

"Was I any different five years ago?" Hinata asked, stepping closer to him.

To her relief, Naruto smiled at her. She allowed him to put his arm around her and pull her body against his so that they walked side-by-side before the marching battalion. Someone whistled at the two of them, causing her face to turn a shade of rosy pink. A residual instinct to hide from prying eyes caused her to huddle deeper in his shadow.

Naruto laughed. "Now who's the one not acting like herself, huh? The 'Angel of the End,' in reality, would probably be better off being called the 'Angel of Closeted Cuddlebugs.'"

"Ah, you're making it worse!" Hinata squeaked. Her face was deep crimson by this time, and the female soldier who had waved at her was now practically swooning with sympathy for her.

"See, I'm not the only one who can't take a bad joke," Naruto said. The foxish grin had returned.

Although still red in the face, Hinata managed to keep her reply steady and free of stutter. "You never answered my question. How is being a symbol bad? I thought you would be proud of yourself with all this attention. This humble reaction makes me feel concerned for you."

Naruto calmly told his troops that they had had enough fun, and ordered them to start focusing on the day's objectives, promising that there would be a lavish party among the victory fires that evening. The troops, accustomed to this routine, readily obeyed in their own individual ways—some of them liked to pump themselves up by humming a tune or putting more heart into their marching, while others preferred to "be like the ninja" and meditated (or tried to meditate) on the move. In any case, the attention was turned away from the leader and his antics at the moment, which suited Naruto just fine for now.

"Hinata," he said quietly, "I _am _proud. I'm doing what I've always known I was born to do, and now I'm being acknowledged by everyone for it. Once upon a time, that was all I wanted, and I couldn't have been happier."

"Then, what's the matter?" Hinata asked. She could sense that she was getting closer to the truth now; Naruto's face could never hide his intent.

Naruto, meanwhile, found himself powerless before her beautiful white eye. The gentle concern he saw within them comforted him more than any words she had spoken. Somehow, though he could tolerate any physical pain in existence, he had never been able to resist the boundless kindness in Hyuuga Hinata's eyes. They brought him comfort and reassurance, and he felt compelled to do the same for her.

"I'm proud," he said, "But not just for myself. Every time I hear one of those jokes, I think to myself, 'What about Shikamaru, Gaara, and Granny Tsunade?' Everyone knows they're the brains on our side. What about Kiba and Shino? They've dug up half the enemy's hiding places by themselves, and taken down more of them than we have. What about everyone who died for the sake of peace? All of them? Where's their praise? Where's _his...?_"

"Sasuke?" Hinata intoned, her voice barely a whisper.

"Yeah..."

Hinata breathed more easily. Here was an adversary that she had beaten once before. It would only take a gentle nudge to do it again. She took his cheek in her hand, pulled his face close, and kissed him softly upon his lips.

"It's sweet of you to give others the credit they deserve," she told him reassuringly. "Especially Sasuke, who was willing to give his life to take back what he did and save everyone. If he hadn't, that weapon could have destroyed our world. But, look at them, Naruto..."

She turned her head to look back at the jubilant mass of soldiers plodding along behind them. They were busily preparing their minds for the battle that was yet to come, just as they had been ordered.

"They're looking to you because you are living proof that no matter how bad things look, there is always hope for a better future if you keep your head up. We all have the power to change things for the better, but it took your courage to show them that."

Naruto did not respond. He looked over his own shoulder at his troops, thinking long on Hinata's words.

"You aren't the only hero," Hinata finished, "But you're the one they all recognize. I'm sure that they acknowledge the other heroes in their own way, or else they eventually will. You are in the spotlight because they need a common banner to rally behind. Someone with a noble cause, an idealist who will end the war honorably and lead them into the next golden age. You keep promising them, by words and with actions, that they are all going to see that golden age."

"I never take back my word," Naruto said, a small smile forming on his lips.

"Your way of the shinobi," Hinata said. Her eyes flashed happily as the light returned to his face.

"Did I ever tell you that I love you?" Naruto asked.

Before she could answer, a muffled beep issued from Naruto's backpack. Their conversation had been interrupted by a call from the command center. Naruto quickly pulled the headset out of its pouch and affixed it to his ear, tapping the microphone gently to ensure that it was connected properly. Then he adjusted the frequency to the required band and depressed the small, silver button on the earpiece.

"Cyclone Battalion, Cyclone One speaking," he said.

"Cyclone Battalion, this is Knight Battalion. Have you reached the position yet?"

"Wait a minute, Knight," Naruto responded, smiling as he recognized the voice of Nara Shikamaru on the other headset. "Hinata, our General's getting antsy. What d'ya say?"

The blood vessels supplying the girl's eyes had dilated to allow more oxygen and nutrients to flow, thus sustaining their superior vision. Hinata was already looking ahead of them with her Byakugan's power of far sight.

"We're nearly there," she told him. "Less than five minutes at this pace should bring all of our forces to the top of the hill, and then we can start. Look, you can see the top of the tower now."

Indeed, when Naruto lifted his own eyes to the heavens, he could just barely make out the tip of the sharp spike of white stone jutting up from behind the mountain's slopes. Diamond Peak Fortress was famous for this monumental defensive structure, which dwarfed the formidable, half-underground main structure by comparison. The tower had windows for over one hundred archers and platforms for two heavy catapults which could hurl a number of different projectiles, including boulders, fiery charcoal, and balloons containing a glue or, if they wished to, an acidic weapon. The outer gate of the fortress was designed to funnel intruders directly into the courtyard, where they would be in the range of the tower's weapons, so that the only way into the main structure was through a hail of arrows and artillery fire. Due to the difficulty of passing through the courtyard, the Southern Eye's combined forces from the Fire and Wind countries and their respective shinobi clans had failed to take the fortress on two separate occasions.

"It's going to fall today," Naruto said. "Once this place is captured, we'll have a clear path to the heart of the Raikage's power. Then we'll make him answer for all this."

"Naruto," Hinata cautioned, "There's still that weapon that we were told about. Do you think it's really the same one that killed Sasuke?"

"Could be," Naruto said, shrugging. "If it is, we'll destroy it. If it isn't, we'll destroy it, then find out if they have more of them, and destroy those, too. Either way, the Cloud're on their last legs. We're gonna end this war now!"

Hinata smiled at his rekindled determination. It kept her heart warm to see her hero get fired up.

_Well, _she thought to herself, _he's really _everyone's _hero now. But that's why he's so special; he takes destiny into his own hands and turns the lives of everyone he touches—even his own life—right around._

"Hey, Knight Battalion," Naruto called over the mike. "We're just about there. Give us five minutes and we'll be ready to go."

As he spoke, the front formation crested the top of the hill, and a sliver of the fortress's outer gate became visible to them, peeking out from behind the nearby slope.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

"Cyclone Battalion is in position," came Shikamaru's voice. "Bloodhound, Weasel, mark your status."

Uzumaki Keisuke crouched low in his hiding place behind two barrels on the wall above the inner gate, rubbing his torso and shivering to keep warm. He wished he had brought more than just his ANBU mission uniform to wear; the things were little more than light metal plating over a thin skin of black mesh, and were geared for temperate climates. Behind his ornamental bat-styled mask, he fought to keep his teeth from chattering too loudly.

"Hurry up already, Kakashi," he muttered under his breath. "This is no time to be reading your books."

He knew that his partner had an obsession for the legendary Jiraiya's line of naughty novels, and was often known to take his sweet time reading them when the mission was relatively undemanding. Keisuke didn't dare look over the wall to see if he had reached the base of the gate like he was supposed to have done, for fear of compromising his own stealth. Fortunately, Hatake Kakashi had taken the mission seriously today, and wasted no time in replying to the general.

"Bloodhound ready for insertion," the radio said in his voice. Keisuke's turn was next.

"Weasel is ready for insertion," he whispered.

"Roger Bloodhound, Weasel. Bloodhound, wait until Cyclone Battalion engages. Weasel, go ahead and insert now. Be careful—it's critical in the early stages that you remain undetected."

"Roger, Knight Battalion," Keisuke said. "Don't worry about it. Just make sure that you get here quick once we've done our part. We don't know for sure what's waiting for us in there."

He lifted the bat mask away from his face, revealing unkempt dark brown hair cut, just short enough so that he didn't look shaggy, and a pair of ice-blue eyes that blinked and squinted in the harsh sunlight. Keisuke was tempted to rub them, but forced himself not to; they could be unfathomably itchy when agitated.

"Damn things just don't want to cooperate," he grumbled quietly. He realized that this was because the eyes he possessed were a relatively new addition to his middle-aged body, and it probably didn't help that the laboratory they had been grown for him in was still highly experimental. They had to be cleaned very carefully, and they were slow at adjusting to changes to light level. Brilliant flashing colors caused him to become instantly nauseous. The list of shortcomings was extensive compared to people with normal, healthy eyes, and even if they did provide him with a whole new way to experience life, he found them highly impractical for use in his daily life.

Withdrawing a black cloth from a leg pouch, he unceremoniously tied it around his head, covering the eyes and effectively blinding himself. Despite numerous efforts to train his new eyes to assist him in combat, Keisuke still found that his fighting was exponentially more efficient without them. They only became a distraction, constantly trying to follow big movements and pretty lights rather than focusing on the target. He preferred to rely instead on his other "sight."

With the blindfold secured, he pulled the mask back over his face and focused his mind, concentrating the energy within his center of chakra. Then, slowly, he began to push it outward towards his limbs, then the extremities of his limbs, and finally out into the air itself. As his energy expanded outward into the environment, he began to feel things; the stone beneath him and its grainy surface, the barrel and all its splinters, the crispness of the air. All this information came from sixty-four invisibly thin, immensely sensitive extensions of his chakra flow, whipping about in wide patterns that covered a sizable radius all around him.

"That's better," he said to himself, checking that his short blade was secure in its holster on his back. "Unless it's the Byakugan, a pair of eyes has nothing on the Ghostly Arms."

He shifted the bulk of his invisible feelers in front of and below him, where the briefing officer had said that a small gap had been blasted in the top of one of the gates in the previous assault. He found it immediately; it was smaller than they had estimated, but it would just barely accommodate Keisuke's lean build. With a quick check behind him to ensure that no guards were passing his hiding place, he vaulted the low barrier and swung himself acrobatically inside the hole, the heavy stone scraping his bare upper arms as he passed through it.

Emerging onto a steep rock ledge, he applied chakra to his hands and feet and clung to the first near-vertical wall his fingers found, and scurried up towards the ceiling to get out of the sunlight that was shining through the hole, surveying his new surroundings as he went. It was lit only by torches inside the fortress—he could feel their small heat—but that suited Keisuke just fine. There were bound to be hundreds of soldiers stationed within, and the more cover he had, the better. The surface he clung to, much to his surprise, was largely unrefined stone, which gave it the feel of a cave rather than a building. This would make navigation more difficult.

_Well, _he thought to himself, _they don't exactly pick ANBU members to do easy missions, now do they?_

"Well," a deep voice sounded, causing Keisuke to freeze in place on the wall, "They don't exactly pick grunts like us for the glorious jobs, now do they?"

"Pah," said a second voice, more shrill and nasal than the first, "Mebbe not, but gate guard? Ah'm a effin' SERGEANT now, innit just mo'e sensical to put me in th' tower? Mebbe wit' th' catapults?

"Who'd want to be up with the catapults?" the first one said, in a tone that suggested he might be rolling his eyes. "Those things'll never fire a shot while there are still archers at their stations. Fifty archers in the tower can hold off a whole army. Hell, you saw it yourself last time."

Though he could not extend his feelers to the ground level, Keisuke surmised that the two men were soldiers conducting a change of the guard. It seemed that they were, thankfully, completely unaware of the impending attack on their base, though that would change soon enough. He held his position above them, his hand on the grip of his blade in case he had to silence them.

"Now, I'll tell you where I want to be," the first man continued. "I'd rather be on that ship they're keeping two levels up. Have you seen the weapon they're loading on that thing?"

"But ain't that ship takin' off t'day?" the nasally voice asked.

"Yeah, but I'd still kill to be on it. Cloud says this thing will blow the enemy right back to the border and take their capital in a month."

"Naw! That jus' ain't..."

"Hey, what's that?"

Keisuke winced underneath his mask. He'd tried to keep still, but had lost his grip on the handhold when he had jolted in surprise upon hearing the lowly gate guard speak about the weapon. He stayed frozen in place, dangling by only his feet, hoping that he hadn't lost the element of surprise so soon into the infiltration.

"Damn torches," he heard the first voice say. "I swear, if they keep going out like this, I'm going to have a fit. I've asked them to fix those drafty holes in the door at least a thousand times now..."

Reassurance flooded Keisuke's cold veins, and he shuddered to rid himself of the tension. He righted himself and crawled upside-down like an insect on the ceiling, moving down the tunnel with a new sense of urgency. His superiors had not known that the weapon was scheduled to be moved this soon; they had known it was being repaired and perhaps modified, but they had not been able to ascertain the completeness of the work. If it was indeed going to be leaving today, he had to find it quickly. Silently, he thanked the unknowing guards for narrowing his search to one level of the facility.

Despite these hardships, Keisuke found himself thinking optimistically. In less than an hour he would likely find the weapon and plant his beacon, and then the cavalry would storm in and take it out. The victory would be complete.

Yet something bothered him: _What kind of ship could move a weapon that big without an ocean to float on?_

OoOoOoOoO

"Weasel has inserted," Shikamaru said over the radio. "Bloodhound, stand by. Cyclone Battalion, begin operation."

Naruto grinned widely and put the radio back into his pack, not bothering to answer. The field was as silent as a graveyard around him, but he could feel the buzzing energy of the soldiers standing at his back. The gates of the mighty fortress loomed over them, and the tower stood menacingly in their path. The blond jounin hero looked at his white-eyed partner with boyish excitement.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Yes," Hinata replied, smiling back at him. She felt the rush of boundless energy flooding her body, and a second set of sensory input entered her brain. Her chakra circulation was joined with that of the young man next to her, synchronizing their senses and pooling their energies together. Even now, she marveled at the amazing potential of the Ghostly Arms that Naruto shared with his adopted brother. Combined with the power of the beast within him and his own immense chakra, she knew that he was capable of defeating entire legions single-handedly. Together, it was sometimes said that the two of them could even defeat a god one day.

Naruto raised his arm dramatically, and it seemed that, for a moment, he stood holding the sun in the sky. Then he brought it downwards in an equally dramatic sweeping motion that ended with his fist punching out at the fortress's waiting gates.

"Attack!" he yelled.

The soldiers collectively threw up a cheer so loud that a small avalanche fell from a nearby mountainside. While it did not bury the fortress, it made a rumble that was highly satisfying and musical to Naruto's ears. Then Cyclone Battalion rushed forward, brandishing its weapons at the advance squadron of troops that were rushing out to man the walls.

Naruto, surprisingly, did not charge forward with them in the initial assault like he usually did. The soldiers in the second wave saw this, and slowed their own charge, wondering what was wrong with their leader. A few of them noticed the devious grin on the fox-like face, and renewed their onward rush, encouraging others to get out of the way.

Glowing tails made of chakra extended from the base of Naruto's spine—nine of them, formed by the Ghostly Arms twisting themselves together in fours—and wrapped themselves around his physical body, forming a protective, majestic shell. Then he leaped into the air, forming shinobi seals with his hands. A whirlwind sprung to life around him, causing him to hover low to the ground and flinging snow and ice everywhere.

_Ready... _Hinata heard the silent word enter her mind. She moved behind her partner. _Aim... _She sank into the basic stance of the art of Jyuuken, or Gentle Fist, the traditional fighting style of her clan. With her Byakugan active, she set her sights on the gates, looking for a weak point, and found an appropriate target—an internally cracked section of the stone of the left door. Adjusting her position to aim at this section, she drew back her right hand and focused her chakra within its palm, making it spin into a small whirlwind of its own. Everything was set.

"FIRE!" Naruto yelled gleefully. Hinata obliged, thrusting her charged palm forward just as Naruto dropped his hovering whirlwind, launching him towards the gates. Soldiers gasped and looked up in wonder as they saw their leader sail over their heads and start spinning around wildly in the air, faster and faster until he was nothing but a swirling ball of raw energy. Then they saw the ball flash red and catch fire, and knew that he had invoked the energy of the beast living inside him. Finally, they saw the living fireball smash against the heavy stone doors and shatter them, leaving the way to the courtyard open and leaving a nice pile of rubble that they could use to climb up the walls and attack the guards standing on them. They cheered and rushed onward.

Naruto rebounded from the collision and spun down, the red energy of the Nine-Tailed fox receding back into his body at his command. He felt the sting on his forehead that announced the modified Caged Bird seal doing its job as Hinata used the secret technique of the Hyuuga main family to activate it, thereby reigning the beast in. Two years ago, this process had been painful, but Keisuke had taught him to modify the seal by covering it with a piece of his Ghostly Arms, thus shielding himself from the effects of the brain-killing technique while allowing it to work its magic on the demon freely. In this way, Naruto was able to call forth the demon's full power in short bursts and then immediately have Hinata restrain it, so that it could not control him. It was a very useful tactic, and had won battles for them on numerous occasions.

High above the ground, he again made a seal with his hands, channeling an enormous amount of chakra. At once, five hundred Shadow Clones materialized in the sky around him, which dropped to the ground among the troops, joining them as they stormed the walls of the courtyard, overcoming the wall sentries and their supporting troops in very short order. Then, he searched the ground below with his eyes, locating Hinata among the fourth wave of troops as they passed her. Closing his eyes, he concentrated, feeling the barely detectable emission of chakra coming from the seal he had formed from one of his Ghostly arms in that spot. An instant later, he was standing on that very spot next to his partner.

Hinata jumped when he suddenly appeared beside her and reestablished their synchronization. Naruto chuckled at her.

"Naruto!" she exclaimed, "You frightened me."

"Sorry, Hinata," Naruto answered. "Forgot that you're not used to the whole Shunshin instant movement thing. I'll try to warn you next time."

"No, it's all right," she said. "I should learn to expect it, anyway. It's a useful technique..."

Naruto silenced her with a peck on the lips. "Maybe later. For now, let's go crack that rock!"

Hinata blushed, but followed him willingly towards the now-open courtyard. Maneuvering through the ranks of charging soldiers, she could see ahead of them to where the first waves were still clashing with the fortress defenders on the walls. The sentries had been eliminated by now, but more soldiers were emerging from their bunkers to take their places, fighting ferociously to keep Cyclone Battalion from advancing further. Hinata knew that this was because the entrance to the foreboding tower was not from the ground level, but from catwalks that connected it to the courtyard walls. This would normally prevent invaders from capturing the tower, but with Cyclone's troops on the walls themselves, it was up to their swords to keep them from crossing the catwalks.

Fortunately for the Lightning troops, there was a section of the walls that passed within range of the tower's archers. Hinata's enhanced vision could already see arrows being loosed onto the first wave as it advanced to that section. The initial success of the attack was halted as the deadly rain of steel fell upon them. Naruto's Shadow Clones helped absorb much of this counterattack, but not enough to avert several casualties. The troops stopped their charge just out of reach of the arrows and began to create defensive formations, as they had been trained to do in this situation.

"Damn," Naruto said. "I knew they had arrows, but I didn't think they had THAT many. Good thing you're such a good planner, eh, Hinata?"

Though her face flushed with modest embarrassment, she refrained from retreating into her timid habits—they had a job to do. Her Byakugan saw into the tower and watched the movements of the troops inside.

"Naruto, we should focus the attack on the east catwalk," she said. "There aren't as many bunkers on that side."

"Good thinking," Naruto agreed. He summoned a fresh batch of ten Shadow Clones and dispersed them into the melee, where they began spreading the word to the company commanders before joining the fray.

The Shadow Clones themselves were highly efficient warriors, as powerful as the original Naruto. They waded and leaped and plowed through the fighting, lending their hand-to-hand, wind-based, and Kyuubi-fire-based attacks to the aid of the soldiers wherever the fighting was thickest. Hinata could see the soldiers rallying around them wherever they were present, using them as a base for their defensive positions. These clone-centered companies seemed from a distance to act like small hurricanes with the Shadow Clones at their eyes.

She saw Naruto's vision focus on one of these clones, who was standing near the catwalk she had pointed out. She heard through the synchronization the wordless mental instruction, _grab on_! And quickly obeyed, taking hold of the real Naruto's hand, and instantly found herself standing with him near the Clone he had been looking at. He had used the Shunshin technique to instantly move to the location of the special seal made by the Ghostly Arms of this Clone. Then the Clone disappeared as it was struck through the chest by an arrow.

"Okay!" Naruto yelled, loud enough for all the nearby soldiers to hear. "Everyone stand back! Hinata and I are gonna clear this bridge, and then we're taking this tower!"

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

Deep within the fortress, five figures stood in the shadows in the chamber of the weapon known as Susa. All of them wore black cloaks patterned with red clouds, marking them as members of the organization known as Akatsuki. They observed the Lightning Country workers and technicians in the main hangar below, all scurrying wildly to complete their tasks before the enemy reached the chamber. The ship's massive engines hummed as they warmed up. The weapon itself gleamed with unholy lights from six of the nine cylinders that hung from the firing module—the second, fourth, and ninth cylinders were empty.

"Such a magnificent machine," rasped the ghastly voice of one of the figures. He was a tall man, with a robust, upright posture that suggested regal background. His face could not be seen, as those parts that were not shadowed by his hood were covered by a dark metal mask. No part of his body with the exception of his obsidian eyes was visible, the rest hidden by his cloak.

"It's ugly," said another, this one a female. Her hair was combed and straight on one side of her head, and wild and unruly on the other. She wore a look of bored disdain. "Why waste time on Bijuu and flying warships? Ninja have gotten along fine on their own since their beginning."

"Karen," the third figure, a fish-like, sharp-toothed, scrawny young man said, brandishing his large sword warningly, "Shut up. You talk way too much, and you never have anything positive to say."

"Karen has as much right to speak as you do," said the fourth. This one was much larger than any of the others, and had gentle features, though these features seemed to be tense, marred by some internal strain.

"You can shut up, too," the sharp-toothed boy shot back. "You're only on her side because we wouldn't have broken you out of prison without her help."

"Be silent, the both of you," the hooded man whispered hoarsely. "This is an important time. Soon, we will have our first glimpse of our target, Uzumaki Naruto. As you know, our new friends, Akatsuki, would very much appreciate his... cooperation. When this fortress falls, he will return to his village to rest, and then he will receive orders to pursue the airship."

"Assuming the airship lifts off in time," the woman called Karen interjected.

"I assure you that it will," said the hooded man. "And when it does, we will go with it as planned. All except you..."

He rested his gloved hand upon the shoulder of the fifth figure—a girl who must have been no older than ten years, who possessed midnight black hair that framed her face in such a manner as to make it look like a pale moon. She had dark, glassy black eyes that gleamed with cunning that looked discomfortingly out of place on a child so young.

"My dear Sachiko," the man told her, "You will go with Uzumaki Naruto and fulfill your assignment. Your father is counting on you. Do not disappoint him."

The girl gazed upon the massive airship and watched as flame shot from its engines. The fortress's ceiling began to open, and the sunny sky outside revealed itself, opening its arms wide to the great machine. Susa would be airborne very soon.

"No," Sachiko said, "I will not."

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO


	3. Chapter Two: Susa's Flight

**Chapter II: Susa's Flight**

_**Diamond Peak Fortress **_

_**0837 hrs**_

The environment on the bridge to the enormous tower was not the best odds Naruto and Hinata had faced, but, after a quick look around, Naruto felt it was more than workable. His soldiers were already backing away to relative safety outside the range of arrow fire, which gave them more room to maneuver. Of course, it also drew all the arrows to him and his partner, but he was confident that the two of them could handle that. The bridge was only about a hundred or so yards long and wide enough to accommodate three men walking abreast—not wide enough to make a mass clone charge feasible in an arrow storm this thick, but nothing that the famous pair from the Leaf couldn't handle.

"Hey, Hinata," he asked, "How about you cover the offense this time? You're the precise one, and those windows are a little small."

"I can only hit the ones closest to us," she responded. "The other angles and distances aren't in my range."

"Get what you can," Naruto told her. Then he smiled deviously. "When we get to the other ones, we'll just make a bigger hole."

This being a common strategy for them—with Naruto absorbing the brunt of enemy attack while Hinata accurately struck at difficult targets—it was not a particularly challenging task for the Byakugan-empowered woman to aim a short burst of low-strength chakra at the nearest archer and block the largest nerve channel to his shooting arm. Arrow fire from that particular firing portal ceased immediately. From behind Naruto's protective screen, blowing at full hurricane force, Hinata repeated the process twenty-two more times. After that, Naruto simply let his barrier drop; even with his massive reserve of chakra, he had decided that it was good practice not to be wasteful of it, lest a high-level battle broke out in which he needed all of it.

"Okay, that makes it easier," he said, noting the significantly reduced rate of fire. "Now, let's get to making that bigger hole."

Hinata took over the defensive role, swatting the greatly reduced volleys from the sky with focused beams of chakra before they got within half the distance. Under this protective screen, it was a quick and easy task to form the swirling sphere of raw power required for this invasive procedure.

"Have some _Rasengan!" _Naruto yelled, and slammed his devastating chakra ball right into the stone walls. As the structure reeled under the strain, all arrow fire stopped as the archers scrambled to grab onto something. Some of them didn't make it, as was apparent from the numerous cries of terror that could be heard from up high, and then progressively fell towards the ground level.

The soldiers raised their voices in a triumphant howl at the dust cloud as it blossomed about the point of impact. Their way into the heart of enemy defensive power was now open, with no arrows or walls to impede them. Some jubilant youths among the ranks sounded a charge and the masses surged forward, eagerly knocking aside the meager resistance still struggling to hold the walls.

Naruto, although equally exultant in his own heart, knew better than to call it a total victory just yet. Quickly summoning eight fresh shadow clones, he alone did not move into the opened tower, instead sending the two clones nearest the opening inside and peering through the dust with Hinata's Byakugan. He also sent a warning pulse through their synchronization, but this was redundant; his partner was even more adept at tactics than he and had already halted the uncommanded charge with a raised fist—army sign language that told them to hold position and await orders.

"The attackers ate confirmed to be Uzumaki Naruto and his battalion," yelled an authoritative voice. It was emanating from a wall-mounted loudspeaker system that that was gravelly-sounding enough to be as old as their grandparents, but Naruto and Hinata were still able to recognize it as belonging to General Tokugawa. Naruto grimaced inwardly and felt Hinata cringe. Tokugawa was a brutally violent, dictatorial nephew of the Raikage whom they had managed to defeat once before, though at the cost of many lives and many more days that could have been spent on more important targets. "I hereby issue Defense Directive Level Four," he continued. "Do not allow them to enter the fortress under any circumstances!"

Naruto twitched. One of the clones he had sent into the tower had been dispelled, and information flooded his brain.

"The _real_ welcoming committee's out!" he yelled.

"I see them!" Hinata answered. "Fall back, everyone!"

Caution had been well-warranted. Hinata's Byakugan enabled them to see the enemy ninja coming before they emerged from the tower. Though it was too late to save the remaining clone, who came rocketing out of the hole with his body engulfed in flames before puffing out of existence, the initial assault was readily absorbed as Naruto's knife met the blade of the enemy in front and his nine chakra tails fanned out to block the others. The Fire Country soldiers and Naruto's remaining clones scrambled backwards.

There were six enemy ninja in all, wearing white cloaks embossed with the seal of the Lightning Country's ruling family. Naruto knew, from descriptions that he'd heard from Hinata, that these were the Lightning Royal Guardsmen—shinobi hand-picked by the Raikage to serve as the palace guardians in the country's capital. Among Cloud's ninja forces, the Royal Guardsmen had no equals, and only the Raikage was stronger. Every one of them was armed with the highest-quality sword that the country had available, a razor-sharp, lightweight, and perfectly balanced curved short sword.

_I guess if _they're_ here_, Naruto thought, _then that big cannon isn't likely to be anywhere else. _He spread one Ghost Arm around his kunai blade, forming a seal that generated a cocoon of wind-based chakra around it.

"Go," he told the six clones that were left. "Keep up the fight until we get to Stage Two. No more deaths than those we can't avoid." Without a moment's hesitation, the clones dispersed to support the other battle hotspots. This was a wise decision, for Defense Directive Level Four seemed to incorporate the use of the tower's catapults with acid-filled balloons for ammunition, the deployment of all the fortress's remaining troops, and teams of lesser shinobi which, while not Royal Guardsman-caliber, were certainly capable of keeping several squadrons occupied all on their own. The assistance of the fresh clones would be essential to minimizing the battalion's casualties.

The ninja who had locked blades with Naruto withdrew and hacked with his sword in a sweeping, quick arc that made the air spark in it's wake. Naruto used the force of his air-enhanced parry to somersault backwards through the air and land on his feet next to Hinata. Immediately, the pair took up an imposing defensive stance, Hinata bent low with arms outstretched palms-out in front of and behind her, while Naruto stood tall and broad, brandishing his knife and beaming tauntingly.

He could feel his blood start to get hot in the cold winter air, his heart beating frantically and his lungs heaving deeply to supply extra oxygen to his body. Naruto was at last getting excited, the prospect of doing what he was born to do causing a surge of endorphins and adrenaline. That enemy's blow had actually stung him even through his parry, representing the first true challenge he'd had in a while.

Beside him, Hinata's heartbeat and breathing sped up to match his, and he felt her chakra density increase exponentially. She, too, had sensed the power behind these cloaked men, and was readying herself for a true challenge. Though it was not in her nature to take pleasure from intense violence, Naruto's enthusiasm spilled into her through their invisible connection, and he knew that he needed no words from her to tell him that they were both ready. He pushed some of his chakra towards her across their connection, and felt her push it back gently; their way of telling each other that they were all ready to go.

The enemy led the battle off, four of them springing forward. Two of these charged headlong down the catwalk towards Naruto and Hinata, while the other two leaped into the air. At once, Naruto bent his legs and jumped after the latter pair. Hinata braced herself, focusing power into both hands and lying in wait while simultaneously watching the two enemies who had not moved, trying to see what they were up to.

The two Royal Guardsmen charging her were the more immediate threat, however. One of them attempted to leap over her, and the second thrust forward and upward with his sword. Hinata managed to knock the blade aside and unbalance the latter foe with an upward pulse of chakra, but she could only try to dodge the knife that the leaper threw at her head. The blade lacerated her shoulder, but her quick sidestep prevented brain trauma. She then reversed her stroke, gracefully striking at the leaper as he descended.

She could not help but think that these men lived up to their reputations. The leaper managed to avoid a direct hit to his intestinal tract by twisting and shielding with his legs as he landed. This put him in a crouching position from which he would have been able to skewer her if she had not immediately sprawled him with a sweeping kick as she ducked under the sideways slash of the other swordsman. To put further distance between them, she shifted chakra to her foot and continued her foot sweep, sending both enemies skidding backwards. Amazingly, the standing enemy kept his footing, and the sprawled one regained his by using the momentum to roll onto his toes and spring back up. The melee was once again neutral, except for the stinging gash in Hinata's shoulder.

Up in the air, Naruto was having little trouble fending off the airborne foes. His air-cutting strokes left no room for the higher of the two to strike, and his nine whirling tails laid a barrage upon the lower. In seconds, he found an opening, formed two hand seals, aimed one of his Ghost Arms at the higher one's chest, and used it to guide a concentrated blast of high-speed air that launched the enemy into the sky. With this enemy temporarily out of the picture, Naruto was able to focus his attention on taking down the one below him. He threw a pair of shuriken, then made two more seals.

"Shuriken Shadow Clones!"

Immediately, the weapons multiplied and his foe was soon faced with over a hundred of them. The enemy, as expected, showed great skill in deflecting even this large number with his sword, so naturally Naruto decided to help it along. He sucked in a huge breath, making still more hand seals, then exhaled it all at once, releasing an enormous wind-natured cannonball. This significantly complicated matters for the enemy, and propelled him toward the ground at high speed with eight shuriken embedded in his flesh. Naruto grinned to himself—that was one down.

Unfortunately, the Royal Guardsmen were far from defeated. From the synchronization with Hinata's eyes and his own bird's-eye view, he knew that the two enemies that had hung back, as well as the one he had just knocked skyward, were within half a second of launching long-ranged ninjutsu at him and at Hinata, and Hinata had her own problems to worry about. He contained his anger—and the boiling power of Kyuubi—upon seeing her shoulder wound. Such explosive power was not needed with this many allies in close proximity. He could do nothing else except channel his wind chakra and try to propel himself downward while warding off the impending attack with a defensive whirlwind. He sent a chakra pulse to Hinata, trying to divert a little bit of her attention to the Guardsman that he had just felled...

Then he swore as two more Guardsmen leaped from the shadow of the tower and tried to stab him. He could only hope that Hinata would get the idea on her own, because his own peril was now greater. Coming out of his spin, he sliced with his air-augmented kunai, gashing the arm of the first opponent and stopping his attack. However, Naruto had not known that the cloaks of these warriors were charged with a high voltage, and so the brief electrical shock caught him by surprise. It did not severely harm him, but dazed him long enough to let the much larger thunderbolt from above hit him with no resistance. He let out a cry of pain and frustration as he plummeted back to earth.

Even as Hinata managed to escape the twin gouts of flame that were launched at her by substituting herself with the shuriken-riddled body of the ninja that Naruto had sent falling from the sky, she still felt Naruto's agony. She knew he had survived, but that didn't make her feel much better.

"Naruto!" she called to him. Frantically, she spun herself into the Hakkeshou Kaiten, releasing chakra from all of her pores. In addition to dispersing the residual flames and buffeting the shinobi who had cast them into the tower walls, it provided Naruto, who had heard her call, with a chakra cushion to slow his fall as her spinning completed. She was relieved to see him land on his feet, albeit somewhat disoriented, and sink to one knee beside her.

"I guess they aren't called the best in the Lightning Country for nothing, huh?" he said, sounding somewhat breathless.

Indeed, the score was impressive after only this short exchange. The Royal Guardsmen had lost one of their number, but had only minor bruises and scrapes otherwise. There were still seven of them and, though Naruto and Hinata were a long way from down and out, this was one fight that could cost a lot of time and, possibly, jeopardize the mission. Neither particularly enjoyed the idea of a loss here, for it would mean another extension to an already too-long war and more time spent mired in the snow that could have been spent rebuilding their world.

Then, three tones sounded in rapid succession from small transceivers clipped to Naruto and Hinata's belts. The Royal Guards froze in their places, suspecting a trap. Naruto grinned—they were right to be suspicious, of course, but caution was not going to help them. The tones meant two things. Firstly, and most importantly, "Weasel" had found what he was looking for, which meant that it was time to move on to the second phase of the plan.

All around them, platoon leaders were receiving the same signals on their own transceivers and were marshaling their troops into renewed offensive formations. Ignoring the danger of the acid-flinging catapults and the remaining archers, and relying on Naruto's clones to keep them safe from the shinobi teams, they stalwartly pressed through the enemy ranks, slowly but steadily gaining ground as they headed towards a new target: the fortress's inner gate.

There was just one problem. The giant tower hadn't been captured yet, as had been their plan. The Royal Guards had delayed them for longer than they had originally intended. Naruto grit his teeth; he couldn't see how they were going to get through this without sustaining a heavy loss of life.

Unless...

"Hinata," he said urgently, a plan lighting his eyes, "Think you're ready to try that new move?"

"A-are you sure?" Hinata asked bewilderedly. "I don't think it's a good idea to be trying an unperfected technique in this situation. It could backfire horribly."

"But your chakra's nature is better for this. It'll stop the enemy with a lot less risk of friendly fire. Either we use it," Naruto said, "Or we risk losing a lot more people than we can afford. Besides, we've done it at least a hundred times already—all we're doing is switching roles."

Hinata felt her throat constrict. He was right, of course, but she had only tried it this way once, and she was not one to be comforted by only one rudimentary success. She would have to put all of her concentration into this effort if it was to be effective.

"All right," she said. "But I'll need at least a few seconds."

"Not a problem," Naruto told her. "I'll bring 'em, you freeze 'em. _Shadow Clones_!"

Five fresh clones burst into life and, along with their summoner, charged the Royal Guards. Hinata noted, using her Byakugan, that each clone peeled off several Ghost Arms as they moved, laying down their invisible, undetectable symbols upon the ground. Then, forming their nine chakra tails, they engaged the enemy six-on-seven. Six of the Royal Guards were instantly occupied in trying to hack their way through their own set of nine agile tails and two kunai-swinging, shuriken-slinging hands, a daunting task for one man alone. One enemy ninja, however, was almost entirely uncontested.

Recognizing the strategy, she herself rushed forward, making herself look busy by aiding the nearest clone with a series of fast kicks and jabs at his enemy's back and legs, forcing the opponent to go defensive. The one Royal Guard who did not have an opponent immediately caught on and moved to support his comrade, coming at Hinata with sword poised for an upward slice. Hinata feigned ignorance, though with her nearly 360-degree vision she could see him weaving through the crowd at blurring speed. She let him get within five feet of her exposed back without showing a sign that she knew he was there.

Then, when he was almost upon her, she sent a fast pulse through the synchronization, and the real Naruto winked out of combat with his Royal Guard, executing the _Shunshin _instant movement technique and kicking Hinata's unsuspecting assailant out of the melee. The hapless Guardsman landed on one of the invisible trap seals left by the clones, and Naruto instantly brushed the symbol with one of his Ghost Arms, feeding it chakra and activating the trap. The Guardsman was cocooned up to his waist in thick ice with his sword hand pinned to his side.

The Guardsman that had suddenly found himself swinging at thin air stopped, momentarily confused, and then his eyes found Hinata assaulting another one of his comrades. He charged, and soon found himself encased in the same ice.

By now, the rest of the Guardsmen had recognized the ruse and attempted to band together to overpower Naruto rather than chasing after Hinata, but now they were severely outnumbered. One by one, they were gang-beaten by Naruto, his free clones, and Hinata and launched into the ice traps until only one of them remained. This last one required no traps, but was held fast by three clones using all their chakra tails to restrain him from casting ninjutsu or using his sword. The frozen Guardsmen started to break out of the ice, but too late; the other three clones molded their chakra with complex hand seals and summoned a colossal whirlwind to contain them. One Guardsman tested this barrier with his sword, and recoiled as the blade was sucked into the maelstrom, nearly taking _him_ with it. They were trapped now, and they knew it.

Still, the clones could not maintain this hurricane-prison forever. It consumed a massive amount of chakra, and the clones only had a small share of what the original Naruto possessed. Both Naruto and Hinata were injured and tired from the intense battle. If they were going to win this fight, they would have to strike decisively and fast.

Fortunately, Naruto's plan called for a finishing move that was extremely decisive and sufficiently fast. Stepping next to Hinata, he held out both of his hands. Without hesitation, Hinata placed her own two hands perpendicular to his, and looked him in the eyes. She saw him smiling down at her, and couldn't help but smile herself.

"You can do this," he said to her. From his palms and fingers came forth his chakra. It was slow and mild at first, but he gradually increased it in power and warped it into a multi-directional sphere until a strong _Rasengan_ was held between them.

"I know," she answered. Carefully, she formed the image in her mind of a vast ocean, and herself floating above it, pushing and pulling it as though commanding the gravity of the moon. She recalled a memory of their time in the Grave, where Naruto had done what she was trying to do now. She had supported him then, sharing the task that had been all but impossible for him to complete on his own. It was time for her to summon her faith and let him support her.

Her confidence surged, and with it surged the _Rasengan. _The ball of chakra was transformed into a glowing ball of wild water, pulsing with thousands of microcurrents all flowing in different directions, each moving with such speed in the chill air that any heat present was sucked out, making some parts of the globe crystallize into ice shards. It was a ball of arctic fury that they held in their hands.

"Looks like it worked," Naruto said. He beamed at her proudly. "Nice job, Hinata! What'd I tell you?"

"Thank you," she said quietly, staring in amazement at her creation. Then she beamed, too. "Let's go!"

The two of them launched their attack just as the clones ran out of chakra and vaporized. They found the Royal Guards in what had been the eye of the whirlwind, huddled together in a tight circle with their swords sticking out like the spines of a hedgehog—a wise tactic, but unfortunately not effective against a concentrated attack. They attempted to spread out, but Naruto had one more symbol hidden on the ground, and he activated it with his Ghost Arms as he and Hinata leaped forth, employing _Shunshin_ yet again. There was no escaping this attack.

"_Water Style: Oceanic Rasengan!"_

The attack connected with the chest of the nearest Guardsman, clipped the two to either side of him, and pressed through to the two behind him. The three in the direct line of fire were hurled back into the tower from where they came, and two of them were flung off of the bridge with bleeding, frostbitten arms and torsos. The remaining two were bowled over and knocked out, but not seriously injured. Then the _Rasengan_ left it's owner's hands and continued on its destructive path, expanding and flinging half-frozen water everywhere until it finally entered the hole in the tower that Naruto had created earlier and slammed into the wall on the other side, blowing another hole and flash-freezing the tower in it's midsection. Naruto and Hinata watched it go, staring in amazement at the devastation.

"Not bad," Naruto said. "We should probably find a way to contain it better, though. I guess the weight of the water gave it too much momentum coming out of the _Shunshin..."_

He paused his evaluation as the thunderous noise of rock crumbling met his ears, and cracks appeared in the tower's midsection where it had frozen. Dismay came over his features.

"Naruto," Hinata said, "I think we won't be able to capture this tower."

"Probably not," he said, "It looks like we broke it." His gaze rested on his troops below him. They were holding position just a hundred yards or so back from the inner gate of the fortress. "Think this tower will fall? If so, we should probably make sure it doesn't fall on _us. _I'll do the nature manipulation this time."

Hinata nodded, and the two of them got to work making a new _Rasengan,_ this one wind-natured. With any luck, they would make the tower fall in a more desirable direction.

_It really wasn't that bad, _she thought to herself. She glanced over her shoulder momentarily at the fallen Guardsmen still on the bridge, and then at her shoulder wound. _But there is room for improvement. Whatever Naruto says, I have to get better._

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Following the unwitting soldier's instructions, Keisuke found that making his way upwards to the third level of the facility was relatively unchallenging. It took only a few minutes to find a stairwell, knock out the half-asleep soldier standing guard there, and creep up the two flights of stairs. He met no one in the stairwell, which he found surprising. Normally, if one were hiding a big weapon, they'd have lots more guards along the path to said big weapon.

Then, listening at the iron door that lead to the third level, he began to understand a little bit more about Susa's security arrangements. A low electric hum told him that the door was electronically locked, alarmed, and probably equipped with at least a thousand-volt shock charge on the handle. He could hear very faintly the muffled voices on the other side of the door of a guard, followed by another voice that sounded like it was coming from a radio. The guards on _this_ floor, at least, were smart enough to make regular reports to their commanders. He'd found no radios on the guard he had knocked out on the ground floor. Keisuke assumed that all this was to help hide Susa's presence here; a large security presence would definitely identify that the base was hiding something, therefore the commanders had deemed it unnecessary to have high-security measures in place on the floors not occupied by the weapon.

Keisuke, however, was getting fairly certain that Susa was indeed here. He could feel the energy of the bijuu within it getting closer to him—he was not entirely sure how, as the chakra tended to be dormant when it was in a vessel unless called upon. He did know, however, that bijuu were in there. He would never forget the awful chakra signature of the Six-Tails that had destroyed his hometown, not in a million years... or however long he had been frozen.

His Ghost Arms wrapped around him, writing symbols on his skin that thickened and began glowing red. He focused his chakra into these markings, increasing their brightness and thickness until his body was wreathed in fire, clothing and all. He called it his Seal of Conflagration—a technique he generally had use for only on rare occasions in combat where his opponents or the environment was particularly flammable. Here, however, it was going to help him break into the third floor of this base. Leaping back onto the ceiling, he withdrew flames from his hands long enough to remove a light fixture that had been set into the stone. Holding the fixture in one hand, he swung his feet into the socket it had occupied and turned up the heat of the flames. Going from orange to blue, the fire melted the rock above the fixture into slag, and Keisuke pushed himself into the ceiling, replacing the light fixture behind him.

It was impossible to breathe inside a slab of half-melted rock, and even his Seal technique couldn't keep him safe from the heat in a closed space, so he hastened to find a good exit point. He used his sense of touch and his Ghost Arm feelers to point himself in the direction of the largest source of noise, which, in addition to providing cover noise to drown out the noise of his exit, probably would take him much closer to Susa. Turning his Conflagration to the maximum safe heat output, he tunneled his way toward the noise and poked a single small hole in the wall, then allowed himself to cool and take a long breath.

Metallic clankings and bangings could be heard from his new vantage point, as well as other mechanical whirrings. Reaching out with some feelers, he tried to get an idea of exactly where he was. After a quick sweep, he determined that he was behind several crates of parts and a couple of barrels of fuel, and that it was probably safe to emerge from the wall. Recalling his feelers, he started to heat up again, intending to burn the rest of the way through the wall. He stopped himself when he heard a very familiar voice speak nearby.

"In case you had not noticed, Captain," this voice said, "We are under heavy assault at this very moment. You had best get your ship moving now if you want to make it out of here alive. I do not care for your talk of 'experimental technology' and your 'additional testing.'"

"But, General," another man tried to interject.

"Now then, Captain," said the General, "Since it appears that the weapon module has been loaded, I will leave you and your crew to the takeoff procedure. Please leave me to the defense of this base. However, if you dawdle, I will not be held responsible for your demise. Have I made myself clear?"

A short pause, then, "Yes, sir. We'll be airborne in five minutes." The Captain walked away.

_Not good, _Keisuke thought. _If General Tokugawa is here, I may not be able to take this thing down in five minutes. _He hit the button on the transceiver at his waist, and prayed that Kakashi had already hit his own. Once both of them pushed their buttons, the transceivers on the belts of all the army's officers in the area of operations would alarm, and the mission would enter into phase two. When that happened, Kakashi would wait two minutes for the soldiers to get into position, and then he would detonate the bomb that he had planted, blowing up the fortress's inner gate. Naruto's troops would swarm in, following the homing signal in Keisuke's transceiver, and help blow the weapon to smithereens, while Shikamaru's mounted forces would emerge from hiding and charge in swiftly behind them, wiping out resistance and capturing the fortress.

_If I only have five minutes, _Keisuke thought, _it's no use waiting on the others to show up! Gotta start now! _Not waiting to hear if his transceiver beeped back at him, he fired up his Conflagration and burst out of the wall. Then, rolling to his feet, he slammed his palms into the fuel barrels, launching them at the largest source of noise, which he presumed to be the ship. Some of the barrels were empty, but two that still contained fuel ignited and exploded, starting fires in the hangar and on the ship.

"Fire!" screamed an operator over the ship's announcing system. "Fire in the weapon compartment! Fire in the launch mechanism! Damage control team, lay to weapon compartment!"

Almost immediately, Keisuke found himself confronted by a large and imposing man. His feelers detected a massive and displeased chakra, but there was also a hint of overconfidence and smugness in the man's aura. He knew that it was also capable of brutality and cruelty when the man was angered. The man's face, square-jawed and black-eyed with a thin mustache and bald head, came to Keisuke's mind, and he mentally superimposed it over the aura he sensed—a habit that he had taken to after he had been given his eyes.

"General Tokugawa," he said, bowing low. "It is my great honor to face you again." His manners towards the man stemmed from their unusual relationship as enemies. While Tokugawa was often cruel and unjust towards his underlings and sometimes even his equals, he believed in manners and etiquette and had a semi-situational sense of honor when it came to war and fighting, which Keisuke had to admit he liked. Back in his youth, warriors had had a similar sense of honor very commonly. Since meeting the General, Keisuke himself had made it a point to improve his own honor at every opportunity, something which his lover Haruka often poked fun at him for.

"Uzumaki Keisuke, is that you?" the General asked, drawing his sword. "I cannot tell through that hideous mask." Tokugawa's square jaw twisted into a smile.

"It's me," Keisuke replied. With no more reason to hide his face, Keisuke discarded his bat mask and drew his own sword, shifting chakra into the blade with a thought. Instantly, the weapon sparked and began glowing with a harsh white light. He unwound his Seal of Conflagration and formed a new pattern on his skin with his Ghost Arms, this one consisting of straight bars linked in short chains and emitting a soft silver glow.

He rushed forward and slashed at the General, who parried expertly and quickly jabbed at Keisuke's chest in response. Keisuke evaded the blow by a hair's breadth, quick-stepping to the left. Tokugawa was surprised to see his blade being pushed away from Keisuke's body by an invisible force, carrying his arm with it. Keisuke took advantage of this lapse of concentration and swept his blade underneath the General's. He held the enemy's blade at bay above their heads as he delivered a solid punch to the jaw, causing Tokugawa to stagger backward.

"You have added to your repertoire of skills," Tokugawa said. He ran his hand over his face, wiping away a small trickle of blood. Then he laughed. "It must be true what they say about you. You never leave the books alone."

"Can you blame me? Reading turned out to be a better teacher of ninjutsu and energy manipulation than roadside improvisation." Keisuke's seal began to glow more brightly as he funneled more chakra into it. Metal objects nearby were sent flying across the hangar—most importantly, the General himself was dragged along the deck by his own sword and heavy metal armor until the blade stuck into the far wall.

"Very impressive, Uzumaki," declared Tokugawa. "You have completely defeated my swordcraft with a single technique. However, your precious ninja technique seems limited by your energy, does it not? You will have to release me to stop the airship." The devil's smile would have made small children hide behind their mother's skirts.

There was truth in the General's words. The use of the magnetic Seal, particularly to the point where several hundred pounds of metal would be hurled in all directions and pinned, consumed a large amount of chakra, so that Keisuke could not be effective at any other task while he kept it up. Burning through the wall with his Conflagration Seal had consumed a lot of his energy. Not only that, but the fire in the weapon compartment did not seem to have any effect on the ship's propulsion system. He needed another option, and fast, for the airship's propellers had already begun to turn, the rudder positioning to rotate the ship towards its intended escape vector.

Propellers and a rudder, which were both made of metal. An idea struck Keisuke's mind, one that could provide him with a way to defeat Tokugawa and stop the ship at the same time. Of course, it was a long shot, and it would probably drain him thoroughly. If it worked, though, it just might have bought enough time for reinforcements to arrive. He concentrated, surging his chakra through the Ghostly Arms in one final effort that pushed all the loose metal in the hangar sufficiently far away, or else off the edges of the flight deck and down into one of the maintenance sublevels where fuel and repair machinery was stored; any extra tin cans lying about would just become hazards.

"You know, General," he said, sighing as he let his magnetic Seal fade from his skin, "As much as I respect you, your knack for being right at the wrong time is starting to unnerve me."

He raised his sword again, the sparks flickering over its smooth, black-finished surface. He'd spent months crafting the blade especially for use with the Seal of Magnetism, eliminating as much metal as possible and making it possible to pass current throughout it in a way that would counteract the magnetic pull. This made it possible for him to blow the weapons out of an entire army's hands while still retaining his own. If only the General had had as weak a grip as his underlings.

Tokugawa's evil little smile remained plastered on his face as he tugged his own larger weapon from the wall, holding it before him with both hands and advancing on Keisuke menacingly. "I make it my business to be right. I did not become a General by being wrong. Uzumaki Keisuke, if we were not enemies, I might actually like you. You never tell me that I am wrong, unlike some of the worms who work for me who should know better."

Keisuke kept his weapon between him and the General as he maneuvered slowly towards the airship, which was now beginning to ascend slowly toward the open hatch. Tokugawa followed him, waiting for him to attack the ship and leave himself open. He seemed supremely confident, which was just how Keisuke needed him to be right now, despite the fact that that he disliked the General's arrogance and that his smile, when Keisuke had once been able to see it, was a little too creepy for his liking.

"You know that as soon as your back is turned, I will gut you," Tokugawa gloated. "Yet if you do nothing, the ship will escape unharmed, and you will not find it again until death is upon you. It is the devil's choice, I know. One way or the other, I have won. Why not just surrender? It would bring you no dishonor to relinquish the fight at this point."

"Actually, General," Keisuke said, grinning back as the transceiver on his belt beeped loudly, "I hate to disappoint you, but you _are_ a little bit wrong this time."

As the thunderous crack of explosives detonating, followed by the rumbling of the fortress's inner gate collapsing, reached both of their ears from two levels below, Keisuke rapidly reformed his magnetic Seal, in the reverse pattern of the previous one, and focused all his remaining chakra into it. Immediately, all of the metal within two hundred meters of him began to hurtle towards him instead of being flung away. Thanks to his clearing of hazards earlier, "all of the metal" in that range included Tokugawa's armor, sword, his own sword, and the propellers and rudder of the airship. It was a huge effort, and Keisuke would not have the strength for anything else, but the ship's climb towards freedom was halted. Of course, it would have been better if the ship had started coming back _down,_ but he simply did not have the capacity.

He did, however, find the General in his face rather quickly. Caught off-guard, Tokugawa had been drawn off of his feet, but he recovered quickly enough to set his sword on a collision course with Keisuke's belly. Turning quickly, Keisuke deflected the blade with his own, causing it to slide past him and adhere to his leg harmlessly. Then he stuck his sword into the General's back, cleaving his spine at the base. Reading had enhanced Keisuke's knowledge of human anatomy greatly, and he favored ending his fights by rendering his opponent unable to ever fight again rather than kill them. In the General's case, this entailed paralyzing him from the waist down.

Tokugawa howled, releasing his grip on the sword and struggling to pummel Keisuke with his empty hands, though the metal plates of his armor made this difficult, as they also were drawn powerfully toward Keisuke's body. He was effectively immobilized, as was the airship above them.

The sound of many voices could be heard from below. Soldiers from the Fire Country whooped and cheered as they breached the fortress at last. Their enemies screamed and then moaned as they were overwhelmed and defeated. Footsteps joined the voices as the soldiers stormed upward, following Keisuke's beacon. It would not be long, both men knew, before the hangar was taken, and each waited quietly in their own mind, knowing that a victory was imminent...

At least, until they heard a child scream from above them. Keisuke's ears perked up, placing the sound at least a hundred meters above them. This was out of range of his feelers, but he did not need their input to know that there was a scuffle breaking out up there.

"She's loose!" one of the Lightning soldiers cried. "The prisoner's loose! Quick, stab her, before she... argh!"

The child yelled again, and more blows were exchanged, though Keisuke could not detect who was winning at this distance. A man cried out in pain, and a dull thud was heard as he hit the deck. Then, the scuffles stopped, leaving the sound of the child's panicked breathing and one of the mens' laughter to fill the hangar.

"Nowhere to go but down, girlie," he said. "Gonna come quietly now?"

"I'd rather die than be put back in that cage, you insect!" The girl's voice was young, certainly, but there was a dark undertone, a seething rage to it that did not belong in the voice of a child. Keisuke found himself intrigued, despite the nature of the situation and the battle around them.

"Suit yourself!" the man cackled, and there was the sound of a single heavy blow, followed by the child's scream again, long and protracted. She was falling, and from the sound of it she was unlikely to survive.

Keisuke acted quickly, knowing that Tokugawa wasn't going anywhere and hoping that his momentary diversion would not allow the airship to escape. By the time his feelers found the girl, however, it might be too late to catch her. He needed to _see_ her. Grunting, he tore the headband away from his eyes, blinking to adjust to the light as he deactivated his Seal of Magnetism and thrust the General away. It was several seconds before he adjusted his vision enough to see her, and by then she was only about fifty meters from the ground. Worse, she was about three times that distance away from where he stood.

"Damn it," he swore. Needing to act quickly, he formed a new Seal on his body, one that gleamed white and had a pattern that was reminiscent of many gusts of wind. His last remaining chakra flowed into this pattern, granting him the burst of speed he needed. Even so, his weakness made him slower than he could have been. He raced gravity, sweat beading on his forehead, trying to ignore the blaring lights all over the hangar that would distract him.

Finally, his Ghostly Arms gained contact on the girl, and he shut his eyes, leaping the last short distance between them. He caught her neatly in his arms before landing awkwardly and skidding along the floor for several meters before coming to a rest. Then he collapsed in a heap, all his chakra spent. His Seal of Speed flickered and then winked out, no longer having anything to power it.

"I'm getting too old for this, I swear," he groaned. Then he opened his eyes to look at the child he had saved. "Are you all right? What was all that about?"

She had black hair and dark eyes that gleamed with a keen intellect, which studied him intently. "I'm... I'm okay," she said slowly, a little shakily. "I would have handled them, but my strength isn't what it normally is. They had me locked up forever..."

"I can relate," Keisuke said, grunting as he sat up slowly and cracked his neck. "A couple of hundred years as an ice cube buried underground took a lot out of me, too. But you'll get your strength back, don't worry. You're still young, yet." He looked at her curiously. "Where did you come from? Are you one of ours, or a defector from Cloud? You haven't got a forehead protector..."

"Isn't that the Susa's airship?" the girl interjected. "It's almost at the exit."

Keisuke shifted his gaze toward the roof hatch, and saw the ship begin to pass through it. He groaned. "Damn it! I hate to say this, but saving you may have cost me the mission, kid." He quickly struggled to his feet, trying to make the Magnetism Seal activate again, even though he knew it was useless. He had no power.

Then the Fire soldiers blew open the door to the hangar and rushed in. Most of them were infantry, but a few of them carried bows. One of them looked up and barked an order, and all of those with ranged weapons began shooting immediately, but it was too little, and far too late. Their aim was sound, but the ship was simply too large to sustain any major damage from a few arrows. It lifted up farther and farther, until it was finally clear of the hatch. Then it began to glide away, off into the morning sun.

"Keisuke!"

The exhausted ANBU member and his rescuee turned to find Naruto yelling at them as he ran into the hangar, Hinata close at his heels. He frowned deeply; as much as he loved the Uzumaki boy who was his friend and brother, he hated telling him bad news. Particularly, when it involved the prolonging of the war they'd been fighting so hard to end.

At his side, the young, dark-haired girl watched with slightly widened eyes that fixed curiously on the blond boy running towards them. "That's... Uzumaki Naruto?" she asked quietly. "The hero of the War of the Eyes?"

"The one and only," Keisuke replied, giving her a bright, if very strained, smile. "Lucky you, eh? I only wish you could meet the hero on a better day."

"No, it's all right," she said, smiling shyly back at him. "From what I've heard, he's the kind of person who's good to meet with no matter what kind of day it is. They say he's very inspirational."

Keisuke chuckled. "That he is. Though I think that this time it'll be _him_ who needs inspiring. This little setback could prolong the war for god knows how long..."

0o0o0o0o0o0o

Clinging stealthily from underneath observation deck of the airship carrying Susa, Karin and Suigetsu watched alongside their hooded colleague as the hangar flooded with Fire Country soldiers and Leaf ninja before disappearing from sight. They could just barely make out the form of an energetic youth clad in orange, alongside a long-haired woman in white, hurtling toward their battered comrade. The hooded man smiled as the youth's energy rapidly evaporated, and he became unhappy.

"Good work, Sachiko," he said, almost purring with satisfaction.

"Oi, boss?" Suigetsu interrupted, his unnaturally sharp teeth grinding in displeasure. "How do we know that she'll do what you want? She just came out of the tube less than a month ago. We don't know what her real motives are, how she'll react. Do we really need _another_ damned woman to play tricks on us when we could just take what we want by force?"

"You shut your ugly..." Karin started, but the hooded man silenced her with a raised hand.

"Sachiko will do as she was indoctrinated to do by her father," he said calmly. "'Keep the secrets of the experiment safe until I come for you. Seek out Uzumaki Naruto and help him destroy Uchiha Itachi.' These instructions have been written into her subconscious mind since her creation. She will obey them to the letter."

"I hope you're right," Suigetsu said. "As long as this weapon is in Akatsuki's hands, we can't do a damned thing else." Beside him, Karin nodded, silently agreeing with the fish-boy for once.

"Patience, my friend," said the hooded one. "Susa will not be under Itachi's control for long. When Sachiko's mission is fulfilled, we will have our opportunity."

And so the three of them flew away, piggybacking on the airship that housed the deadliest weapon on earth, leaving the girl to her task.

**OooOoOoOoO And So Ended Chapter Two OoOoOoOooO**

Notes: I found this chapter half-finished on my computer after months and months of inactivity. After some deliberation and re-reading my old material, I had a sudden urge to finish it. This stuff may be old and far-detached from the canonical, but it brings back fond memories to work with old characters and plots sometimes. Ah, nostalgia...


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